Innogy's npower to cut 900 British jobs in 'incredibly tough' market

FILE PHOTO: A sign hangs outside the building of electricity provider npower in Solihull, Britain, March 7, 2016. REUTERS/Darren Staples

LONDON (Reuters) - Innogy SE’s npower said on Thursday it will cut 900 jobs in Britain this year to lower operating costs as it faces an “incredibly tough” retail energy market.

The UK energy supplier said the proposed reductions will be out of a workforce of 6,300, although as around this number leave each year, the number of redundancies will be much lower.

Britain’s energy market regulator Ofgem imposed a price cap on default energy bills from January this year to save households about a billion pounds a year, following a government promise to tackle rising prices.

“Ofgem itself forecasts that five of the Big Six energy companies will make a loss or less than normal profits this year due to the implementation of the price cap, and with several recent failures of new energy suppliers, it is clear that many have been pricing at levels that are not sustainable,” npower chief executive Paul Coffey said.